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Belgium Field Trip / Belgium Travel / Bruges Travel / Brussels Travel / Travel Tips / Belgium / Food Travel / Hotels / → All Tags

Where To Sleep, Eat, Drink and Sightsee in Bruges, Belgium

We took this with our iPhone and made it sepia. Awesome, huh?

As awesome as America is for road trips, and as much as we love hitting the European capitals, it sure is a breath of fresh air to head out to a smaller city—one perhaps with a preserved medieval quaintness and yet still very connected to the rest of the world. This we found in Bruges, Belgium.

The town is a mere 45-minute inexpensive train ride north from Brussels Gare-du-Midi, and once there, you need not set foot in another vehicle again until you depart; the whole town is extremely walkable, so long as you like cobblestones and bridges over canals. It's also an affordable place to spend a few nights—although we recommend avoiding the months between April and September, when the town is packed with tourists in the day and prices are hiked.

Last month we headed to Bruges for some time in the city during a time of the year when the streets are more full of locals than tourists, and thus we freely roamed around the best places for the best deals, and we'll share our tips with you after the jump!

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Inauguration 2009 / Belgium / Bangladesh / → All Tags

There's Other New World Leaders Too

We’re all about Barack Obama and the inauguration, the parties, the celebs, and the hoopla. However, 2009 is a big year for some other world leaders as well. Since we try to be “fair and balanced,” we want to give a little love to the shining stars in some other countries.

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Belgium / Belgian Chocolate / Belgium Beers / Sales / → All Tags

Belgium Was For Sale

Too slow, Jaunted readers, too slow. If you'd been paying attention to Belgian eBay this week, you could've been the proud owner of your very own country. An ex-journalist put his nation--"Belgium, a kingdom in three parts"--up for sale in frustration at the fact that powers-that-be still haven't formed a proper government, 100 days after a general election.

Bids for Belgium got up to €10 million before eBay pulled the nation off the auction site, saying selling the country was "unrealistic". Pity, because we wouldn't have minded owning Belgium ourselves. Or at least the bit with all the chocolate and beer.

Related Stories:
· eBay Stops Sale of Belgium [AFP]
· How To Do A Belgian Chocolate Deal [Jaunted]
· Give Us A Belgian Beer [Jaunted]

[Photo: MissyH]

Food / Money / Belgium / → All Tags

Keep the Change

Sometimes we think fast food is getting slower and more expensive, but now we've found the right destination to feed our cravings and help the bank balance. This week at a McDonald's in Belgium, a drive-thru customer ordered his meal--probably een Cheeseburger and een grote Milkshake--and drove off with the normal paper bag and a cheery Eet smakelijk (enjoy your meal) from the server.

He really enjoyed it: the bag contained 15,000 Euros (almost $19,000). He enjoyed his cheeseburger, contemplated moral values briefly, and returned the money to the store, where he was promised a reward.

Of course, we recommend experiencing local cuisine when you travel, but just for the record, he visited McDonald's in Waterloo, near Brussels; unfortunately, we can't guarantee the same result when you stop by.

[Photo: o2ma]

Related stories:
· Man Finds Money in Meal [Ananova]

Brussels / Belgium / Design / → All Tags

Splitting the Atomium

Brussels may be most famous for being home to the beautiful Grand Place and the cute-yet-tiny Manikin Pis, but locals hold a special place in their hearts for the Atomium. A 334-foot structure first built for the 1958 World's Fair and shaped like a crystal molecule at 165 billion times magnification, the Atomium has just undergone a $28.3 million reconstruction.

The elevator--which was the world's fastest when the Atomium was built--now has a glass ceiling, just like Top of the Rock. Otherwise, the restoration stayed true to the original, which was futuristic enough, instead of going to Reichstag route and adding onto it.

In the American tradition, there's also a restaurant on top. Just what you'd expect from a structure described (on the Atomium web site) as "the most astonishing in the world".

[Image via zig/Flickr]  

Related Stories:
·   Mighty Atomium [Wallpaper*]

Belgium / the Netherlands / France / Tourism / → All Tags

Mini-Stonehenge with Frites

On April 1, the travel section of Amsterdam's sensationalism-inclined newspaper De Telegraaf ran a little piece by Melle van der Velde on "de mooiste dorpjes van Wallonië," or the most beautiful villages of Wallonia. Wallonia, for those unfamiliar with Belgium, is the French-speaking part of Belgium. Photos of two villages appear in the Telegraaf's short article: Wéris, with its Stonehenge-light megalithic stones, and Falaën, with a cute little castle.

The Telegraaf suggests that Dutch tourism to the Ardennes, that forested, hilly region spread across Belgium, Luxembourg, and a bit of France, is on the upswing. This is only logical. Close to the Netherlands, the sparsely populated Ardennes region provides much needed geographical variation (being above sea level), not to mention some fresh air, for visiting lowlanders.

The "beautiful villages of Wallonia" is also the branded name of a rural tourist association in Wallonia. Founded in 1994, it was inspired by a French rural tourist association of the same name. There are 22 villages in the association, and they stretch beyond the Ardennes. One, Mélin, is just a stone's throw from Brussels.

[Image via Andre Wind/Flickr]

Eurotrash / Travel Writing / Belgium / Brussels / → All Tags

Stop Getting the Party Started

Why, New York Times, oh why did you mention that Brussels is leading the way of the European party scene? It ruined a perfectly serviceable article about the bite-size Belgian burg.

Brussels is a fun little town. It's unpretentious, has fantastic food--both of the starred-Michelin and gooey-waffled variety--and allows the visitor come to appreciate the city's charms, rather than be all up in their grill about it.

But party capital? No no no no. This needs to stop right now. Describing a city in Europe as a "party capital" can be directly translated to mean "Here, there are discos playing the most annoying hits from five years ago. You will be forced to drink rum and coke and dance with strange-looking men in tight pants." Don't be fooled.

Go have dinner at La Quincaillerie instead.

[Image via Daniel S/Flickr]

Related Stories:
·   Going to: Brussels [NY Times]
·   Tower Comes to Tiny Towns [Jaunted]

Beer / Seattle / Belgium / → All Tags

Tap Dancing

It's Friday afternoon in springtime, and that can mean only one thing: Beer. And soon. Right now, in fact, if you work from home like we do. Kidding! We actually started hours ago.

As far as beer goes, Seattle bar and restaurant Brouwer's Café on Fremont, is on our list. The café is owned and operated by the same folks as famed Seattle beerporium Bottleworks.

While the bottle selection is impressive at Brouwer's, we're more excited about the massive number of Belgian beers on tap, including several lambics. It's enough to rival even the gone-but-not-forgotten Belgo in New York.

There's Belgian food as well, which is tasty but can be a bit meaty once you venture past the fries. But Delirium Tremens on draft? We'd hoist a glass to that any day.

[Image via NeoFuturist/Flickr]

Related Stories:
·   Center of the Belgian Universe [Seattle Times]